


Heroogony

by The_Readers_Muse



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: 6x12 spoilers, Carol needs this, Caryl is mentioned as endgame but this is very much a Tobin/Carol fic, F/M, Mild Language, Nudity, Sexual Content, Tobin has a low-key superpower, Tobin is a gentle tol tree of goodness and should be showered with every good thing, missing scene type of fic set right after the Tobin/Carol kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:55:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6192268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Readers_Muse/pseuds/The_Readers_Muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But Carol?</p><p>Well, she was something else altogether.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.
> 
> Authors Note #1: Spoilers for 6x12 – This is a story that features Carol/Tobin and his directly based off of their scenes and kiss from the episode. Set during the scene and meant to reference to what could have happened after it faded to black. – Based on the premise that Tobin has a low-key superpower, extreme empathy. Empathy itself is a defined as the experience of understanding another person's condition from their perspective. But in Tobin’s case he feels people’s emotions, sensing strong emotions and sometimes being affected by them.
> 
> Warnings: adult content, adult language, 6x13 spoilers, mild references to off screen sexual content, nudity, mild sexuality.

" _Those things'll kill ya. You got another one?"_

" _Not for you?"_

" _Why's that?"_

"' _Cause, asshole."_

" _Okay. Couldn't sleep either?"_

" _I never could sleep."_

" _I'm worried about tomorrow."_

" _You going?"_

" _No. You are. You can do things that just terrify me."_

" _How? How do you think I do those things?"_

" _You're a mom."_

" _Was."_

" _You are. It's not- it's not the cookies or the smiles. It's just- it's the hard stuff. The scary stuff. It's how you can do it. Strength."_

" _You are a mom to most of the people here."_

" _To you too?"_

" _No. You're something else to me."_

* * *

He'd been about to go back inside when he'd felt her coming.

Not heard.

Not seen.

Not sensed.

_Felt._

Because that was what he did.

For as long as he could remember.

There wasn't no rhyme or reason behind it that he could figure.

He could just sense things and that was that.

From the time he was young he'd always been able to tell what people were thinking. If they were happy, sad, mad or worse. It was usually only strong emotions he could pick up, unless they were touching him. Things like the feral burn of rage or the giddy pleasure of true happiness and mirth. Love. Sadness. The whole package.

His parents had to have known. Known he was different. Because all things considered, being emotionally intuitive was a far cry from being able to do what he could. He sensed and felt things like the emotions were his own. Like he'd been born tuned into an additional signal. Something other people – normal people - didn't pick up on. But being god fearing Americans who'd been and born and raised in the deep south, it just wasn't something his folks talked much about.

It wasn't full on denial or revulsion, but there'd always been a silent rule in the household never to talk about it. He'd toed that line dutifully, not wanting to make waves. Never wanting to. After all, how could he? Not when he could feel the acrid tang of his mother's anxiety day in and day out as she puffed on those menthols of hers. Or worse- the spreading stain of his father's disapproval every minute of every day for having a freak for a son. A son that didn't like the things he did. That preferred to use words instead of his fists and shied away from the whip-crack of his old man's rifle every time his father dragged him out during deer season.

It didn't matter that'd he'd done everything they'd asked. He'd dragged himself through high school, even paid his way through a couple semesters of college. He'd been starting line on a semi-pro football team until a knee injury ended that dream before it'd really started. It was never enough though. And he supposed it'd never been the point either. Still, he'd gone on and done something worth doing with his life. Getting into construction and design before the years passed flicker-quick and the world came crashing down around them.

When he'd been younger he'd tried to ignore it.

Pretend like he was normal.

But it'd never worked.

It was too engrained in who he was.

Hardwired straight to his heart.

It made things easy in a way.

But also hard.

_Complicated._

And he wasn't a man that particularly liked complicated.

He reckoned that was the whole definition of irony right there.

* * *

The uneasy warmth of her sitting beside him on the porch was familiar.

They'd done it more than once since the walls had come down.

Just talkin'.

He'd gotten used to her moods – what she kept back – between smart words and smiles and the back and forth of stale nicotine that still had the ghost of her taste flirtin' with the edges of the lip-damp paper.

It'd been difficult at first.

Strong feelings had always been a problem for him to navigate through.

It was a balancing act on the best of days and a crap shoot on the worst.

Things like someone else's fear could be too much sometimes. Especially if it was working its way through a crowd. Building itself up into a frenzy until his skin felt five sizes too small and he was a hair's breath away from a heart attack.

After the world ended he figured he'd just gotten used to it. But back in the construction yard, not long after Carol and the others had arrived, Francine's fear had overwhelmed him on a level that made him realize how wrong that assessment had been. He could use his ability as an excuse – cutting himself a bit of slack he figured in that respect he really didn't deserve. But at the end of the day, the truth was he wasn't _that_ confident the difference between his fear and Francine's had been that far apart.

He tried to be better for it though, afterwards.

But Carol?

Well, she was something else altogether.


	2. Chapter 2

_What Carol felt like?_

_What she was inside?_

Honestly it was hard to describe.

He'd never felt it's like before and figured he probably never would again.

And that went for both the good and the bad.

But if he had to put a marker on it - put it all into words - he'd have to say it reminded him of a line from a poem he'd read once. _"_ _I had found unmysterious flesh._ _Not the mind's avid substance – still._ _Passionate beyond the will."_ He wasn't sure why, but he couldn't deny it didn't fit. At least on the surface.

Because she _was_ passionate, even as she was teetering towards self-destruction. Everything about her was gritty, real and self-damning when you looked under the surface. When you could sense things like he could. Beautiful in a baser, humanistic sort of way and completely unapologetic when it came to obligations of that very nature. Of being human. Of being passionate. Open. Loving. Flawed.

Hell, when it came to what she'd been through, he was sure he didn't know the half of it.

But maybe for this, he didn't have to.

Because the rest happened naturally.

_Like breathing._

She moved first. Tipping her head just so, enough that when he leaned in, it was like clockwork. Moving in for a kiss neither of them had really being expecting before breaking away softly and resting there together as they both took stock. Wrangling past histories, old lovers and where this whole thing left them now in less time than it took for her eyes to flutter open again.

But frankly, he'd already made his peace with it. Feeling more alive than he had in over a year as everything she was holding back threatened to give way behind those battered little shields of hers. More sure than ever that this was exactly what she needed – _what they both needed_ – as fractured little puzzle pieces of feeling filtered through the growing haze of arousal.

He took everything she had to give and swallowed his way through it. Giving her something to lean against. Emotionally. Mentally. Physically. All of it. He could be exactly what she needed, simply because that was who he was at the core. Someone that understood solace and different types of bravery. Someone that could feel what she was feeling and nudge a little of his own brand of strength back into the heart of her. Someone that needed just like she needed and had all the reason in the world to want to share that with her.

This didn't have to be anything - mean anything.

They could just be.

Like this.

Here and now.

It could be enough.

_A start._

She was a maelstrom of self-loathing and good intentions drenched in red.

A citizen of decay festering under a slow burning fire that'd settled deep in the roots of her.

And he just wanted to be water.

* * *

 " _It's not tomorrow yet."_

* * *

He followed her inside like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Buoyed by the tidal wave – _want, need, desire, all of it_ \- she left unknowingly in her wake.

She looked back at him coyly when she reached the stairs. Expression part shit-eating, part challenging in that way he couldn't help but love right from the start. Something that clearly said _"you coming?"_ without her having to say so much as a word.

He smiled right back as he locked the door behind him.

She was so strong.

Miles stronger than he'd ever be, if he was being honest with himself.

But also wounded.

Ripped thin and perishable in a way he didn't quite know how to mend.

All he knew at the end of it though, was that her face deserved that smile.

Deserved _every_ smile.

He caught her there, halfway up the stairs. Making sure she could see him coming as he wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her easily. Kissing raspy and stubble-gentle into the freckled-porcelain of her neck as she let go of a breathless sound. Inhaling deep, half high on the simple pleasure of it as she shivered receptively underneath him.

_He'd missed this._

_God, had he missed this._

It wasn't until he had her there, fingers flirting with the curve of her that he was able to get a handle on her. Understanding what he'd only ever really suspected before all this. That someone – _something_ \- had left an unstable continent of black tar smudges on her beautiful soul. And while it was starting to fade around the edges, helped along all slow like by another, it was clear they weren't ready to be what she needed. Not yet.

He already had half a mind as to who that person was. It wasn't exactly rocket science after all. Hell, he'd felt them reaching for each other since they'd arrived. Even when they were yards apart and Daryl didn't do much other than co-exist, all rough and quiet in her space, they were always helping each other cycle through everything.

He'd be a fool if he didn't admit that Carol and Daryl didn't have the ring of _someday_ to them.

It felt right, in fact.

Like a foregone conclusion if they let it.

And while it was probably a strange feeling to have as he scooped her up and kissed her slow right there on the stairs, for some reason it didn't make him feel sore at all. Because he knew better than most that no one could really help what they felt. And honestly, for right now her attention was on him and him alone and he couldn't deny that wasn't a hell of a feeling.

* * *

When he woke up that morning he didn't need anything extra to know she was gone.

Her side of the bed was sweat-cold and vacant as he reeled his hopeful arm back under the covers with a soft sigh. Stretching out sideways across the too short mattress as he eased a kink out of his back. Only half listening to the low moan of the front gates easing open and the rattle of half a dozen different engines start up. Picking up the faint whispers of nervousness, uncertainty and dread as Rick, Carol and the rest of the group headed out. And while they were too far away for him to figure out what emotion was attached to who, he got enough to figure the general consensus.

_No one wanted to do this._

_No one wanted to kill._

_But they would._

_They would because they had to._

He stuffed his hand under his pillow as his cock twitched, sated and nude under the sheets as he let his thoughts reel back. Savoring the backwash from the night before. Decidedly self-satisfied. Remembering how heady it had been to see his wide palms spread across her lithe little hips. To watch her shake apart – surprised – against the calloused pad of his thumb. Feeling like he was a millimeter from breaking her clear apart in every way that mattered until she'd pushed him down into the sheets and slung her legs over his. The silver in her hair highlighted by the moonrise through the window as her head tipped back and he bit off a curse when she finally took him straight. The both of them more than done with teasin'.

_Because god knows, it'd been a while._

He hummed tunelessly through the quick of the moment as his bare toes rubbed together, self-soothing and backed up by the _crick-crack_ of flexing joints as he yawned into the growing dawn. Feeling a hundred times better than he had in ages as he flopped over. Curling onto his side and smiling into her pillow as the barely-there smell of her proved more than satisfying.

Because the thing was, she'd left smiling.

_He could tell._

It lingered in the air like a subtle perfume, tangling lazily between the dust motes. Rippling over him like a second skin as the echoes of last night's pleasure sounded off clear as day as the sheets rustled and the cadence of that last soft sigh when she'd peaked sunk deep and safe into the lock box he kept in the back of his mind. The same one he came back to on the bad days. Reminding himself of all the good things that had existed before – that existed now. Important things. Important people. And at the end of the day he figured that little box of memories was richer for her presence.

The feelings she'd left behind for him were refreshing and warm despite all those parts of herself she still kept hidden. The ones she didn't know he could sense. The ones he could feel right along with her. Even the darker ones. The ones that made him twitch inside his skin whenever his mind grazed across them. Only ever skimming the surface until the urge to recoil became overwhelming.

Still, he couldn't help but reach out for more.

It was her after all.

And honestly, while things were far from perfect, knowing she'd left with a smile on her face because of him?

Well, wasn't that just a _hell_ of a way to start the day?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reference:   
> \- The line “I had found unmysterious flesh. Not the mind's avid substance – still. Passionate beyond the will,” is from the “The Alchemist” by Louise Bogan, 1923.

**Author's Note:**

> Reference:   
> \- The title, "heroogony" is a word meaning: "the birth of heroes as a result of a union between gods and mortal women.”  
> \- Thank you to gunslingerdixon for the dialogue from the episode.


End file.
